


Getting Time and Regretting It

by OceanMelon



Series: Honey, That's Alright [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bands, Alternate Universe - Celebrity, Alternate Universe - Music, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Bisexual Matt Holt, Gay Keith (Voltron), Getting Together, Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, M/M, Singer!Shiro, Song fic, Underage Drinking, bassist!keith, broganes, but it's just those fake-ass allies again, but like super vague, but really america 21 is a dumb drinking age, drummer!allura, guitarist!matt, guitarist!shiro, meet cute, songwriter!Allura, songwriter!keith, vague references to depression and suicidal thoughts, very mild homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-30
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-04-30 03:48:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14488161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OceanMelon/pseuds/OceanMelon
Summary: Stagnant in a new city, Keith's band isn’t going anywhere. He's given up the chance to do the normal thing; go to college, get a steady 9-5 job at a desk. Thrown it all in for his dreams of music and it's not going anywhere. He’s pretty sure he’s going to be struggling through life with two customer service jobs and three hours sleep a night until the end of time -- and then he meets Lance; bottled sunshine in human form. And suddenly the world doesn’t seem to be filtered in grey-scale anymore.(Feel free to read the series out of order. It's not chronological anyway.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title is paraphrased from another Catfish and the Bottlemen song (it's a theme now), 'Twice'. The original lines were: 'Because if I get time,/I'd just regret most shit.'
> 
> Also, it's probably obvious that I am not American. I've never even been to America. So, let me know if I'm screwing up somewhere.  
> ... Except I'm not going to give up my Us in favourite and colour and mum. I'll use standard spelling until I die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uh... you all seemed to like Cocoon pretty well so I figured I'd go ahead and write the whole past section where klance meet and fall in love and then... well, let's leave it there for anyone who's reading the series out of order.  
> I had some trouble with the voice in this fic a bit because I wrote Cocoon when I was so bitter and angry with the world but you guys left such lovely comments that I really struggled to pick up on that bitterness again. I gave it a shot, though. I hope you like it.

There’s a phrase that keeps floating through Keith’s head. Just: ‘What am I doing?’ It’s on a loop, around and around and around.

_WhatamIdoingwhatamIdoingwhatamIdoingwhatamIdoing?_

When he’s at work, serving customers with a smile carved into his face or trying to sign them up for a membership they’ll never use and that will slowly bleed them dry, when he’s walking home, when he’s at practice, making dinner, in the shower, trying to sleep, again and again it’s ‘what am I doing?’.

There’s an anxiety to it, a feeling of missing out, like taking a sick day that happened to be someone’s birthday and they brought cupcakes. On one hand, there’s nothing inherently wrong with spending a day cocooned in bed, eating soup and laughing at Netflix so loudly your neighbours bang on the wall, especially if you _are_ actually sick. On the other hand, cupcakes. And you missed someone’s birthday so you’re automatically a jerk. It’s that tight chested feeling of ‘Aw… Janet made cupcakes?’ only it doesn’t go away. Not after a few minutes, not after days. It’s been eight weeks since Keith dropped out of college and move to Los Angeles with his band and they’ve been eight solid weeks of no cupcakes and ‘what am I doing?’

It rolls through his head again as he strolls into band practice fifteen minutes late because he missed his bus but it’s happening with such regularity now that he ignores it.

They can’t practice in the flat they share -- they’ve already had too many noise complaints -- but they can’t afford a studio. So they practice in a garage. It belongs to some guy called Derek who seems to hate them but love their money and lives just outside the city.

“Sorry I’m late,” he mumbles but he knows Matt won’t be here yet anyway.

“It’s fine, actually,” says Allura so pleasantly that Keith looks up from where he’s unclipping his bass case.

He frowns. “What’s got you so chipper?”

“We’ve got a gig,” Shiro supplies, ducking under the roller door into the garage. He’s probably been talking to Derek again. No one’s ever envied him the job.

Keith’s frown deepens. “Good?” he says. The last time Shiro brought them a gig it’d been for some tween’s birthday party.

He can apparently read Keith’s mind because he points at him sternly and says, “Hey, any recognition is good recognition.”

“So where is this so-called gig?” Keith asks.

“A bar. Downtown. We’re opening for one of their more regular performers.”

Keith tries not to grimace. Chances are they’ll be playing to an empty bar again then, too early for anyone to be in.

“Well, it’s a step up from birthday parties,” says Allura, plopping onto her stool and picking up her sticks.

 _Any recognition is good recognition_ , Keith repeats to himself as his brain continues to loop ‘What am I doing?’ quietly in the background.

“How’s the youtube account coming?” he asks Allura to change the topic.

She lowers her drumsticks with a sigh. “We’re still sitting around the 600 subscribers mark, which… isn’t _bad_ but…”

“No one’s quitting their day jobs, though,” he finishes for her.

 _Stagnant_.

The word floats through his head with all the other mess. But it’s quickly interrupted by a cacophony of swearing and falling things, followed by a loud ‘thwunk’ as Matt finally trips into the garage, smacking his head on the door as he goes.

“Fuck. Shit. Ow. God. Hey!” he says, hoisting the strap of his guitar case back onto his shoulder. “Sorry! Yeah, I’m late again. Work and then trains and then busses and _traffic_!” He throws his hands in the air. “You know, the usual. Let’s just get started, yeah?”

“Shiro got us a gig,” Allura interrupts.

Matt winces. “Look, Shiro, I know at this point we gotta be grateful for anything we can get but I’d really like to not be hit on by a twelve year old again anytime soon.”

Shiro looks affronted but Keith just snorts a laugh into his fist and goes back to setting up his bass.

 

***

 

The gig goes about as well as expected. And there’s such a frustration about it because, dammit, they worked hard for this. So many afternoons leading up to it crammed into Derek’s garage talking with bright eyes (‘We should play something mainstream, like really mainstream. Something everyone knows the words to, that makes them want to sing along, get involved, have a good time.’ ‘Clever, Matt. Then we can sneakily slip in a couple of originals and they’ll be hooked!’), sure this’ll be their first decent break, and practicing and practicing and going into work the next day on three hours of sleep, Allura still beating out drumlines with her fingers as she carries customers their essential morning pastries. But there are a grand total of five people, including employees, in the bar when Shiro opens his mouth and says, ‘Good evening, we are _Castle of Lions_ ,’ and there are still only five when he says goodnight.

The band packs up with blank faces. Shiro keeps closing his eyes and taking deep breaths. Lord only knows what he’s thinking that necessitates such extreme calming measures.

“I’m gonna stay,” says Keith when they’re all packed up. “Grab a drink, listen to the main act.”

Allura just pats him on the shoulder as they all file out past him with nothing more than nods of recognition.

 

Keith doesn’t actually turn twenty-one for almost a full year but the bartender doesn’t even question it when he slides onto the stool and asks for a whisky, just offers a reassuring smile.

“For what it’s worth,” she says, “I thought you guys were really good. Better than this lot, at any rate.” She nods her head in the direction of the main act setting up on stage.

“Thanks,” he replies but it tastes strange in his mouth. Something he’s expected to say, just sounds without meaning because they’ve been said so many times -- ash, the burnt leftovers of something once useful. Because who gives a fuck if they’re good if no one’s ever going to hear them?

“Hey guys,” a smoker’s voice says over the microphone and Keith glances over his shoulder long enough to glimpse a white guy with dreads before he’s back to staring into his drink. “We’re _Killer Callous_ and how y’all doing tonight?”

The bar has been slowly filling over the last half an hour and it feels like a kick in the guts that a band called ‘Killer Callous’ could possibly have more pull than they did.

The frontman, seemingly satisfied with the mediocre whoops he got in reply, launches into their first song. An atrocity where poor vocals are hidden by heavy drums and guitar, poor instrumental skill is hidden by sheer volume. Keith winces and tries to stop feeling like he’s going to cry.

No, he’s not bitter at all.

It’s a flip of the coin, he knows. There’s as much luck as there is skill involved to make it in music. No, it’s not a flip of the coin, it’s not even a dice-roll, it’s a roulette wheel with thousands of options. Chances are there are hundreds of better bass players out there who aren’t even where Keith is. He’s got to grit his teeth and bear it because he’s never going to win the jackpot if he’s not even on the wheel.

He drains his drink, ditches his jacket over the back of the stool, and asks for another. The bartender just nods at him.

Maybe it’s one drink or maybe it’s three drinks later -- all Keith knows is that _Killer Callous_ have played seven songs and the bar is packed now -- when some guy slides into the empty stool beside him.

“Heya beautiful,” says this stranger except, when Keith turns to glare at him, he follows it up with, “Fuck. You’re gorgeous,” in the same tone he might have used had Keith turned around and been his cousin.

“What?” says Keith, too tired and too stuck and too buzzed for this right now.

The guy’s just staring at him wide eyed and mouth slightly open and, damn it all, he’s pretty cute.

Keith sighs and rolls his eyes. “Has that line ever worked?”

“What?” says the guy and he sounds so genuinely confused that Keith frowns a little harder. “No, I… Shit, I didn’t realise or I wouldn’t have… I’m just gonna--” he gestures vaguely over his shoulder, “-- because you are -- wow -- way outa my league.”

And he turns to walk away.

“What?” says Keith again. “Alright, I guess…”

The guy stops to stare at him again. “You really… You really have no idea, do you? I mean, putting aside the mullet-ish hair you’re rocking -- and, shit, you’re somehow still making it work, what the hell -- you’re pretty much the physical embodiment of perfection, you know that, right? Like, shit man, have you somehow never seen your eyes? They’re like… like storm clouds or something -- at _night_!”

“So… they’re dark? You really are working this bit, aren’t you?” And Keith is more amused than irritated now because can you even see storm clouds at night?

“You don’t believe me,” says the guy incredulously and then he turns to shout over his shoulder, “Hey! Naomi! Get over here and tell this guy he has eyes like the cosmos because he won’t listen to me!”

 _Eyes like the cosmos_.

Alright, Keith feels his guts twist a little at that one but it’s only because this stranger has a turn of phrase that has the songwriter inside him envious. He kind of wants to take out his phone and write it down so he doesn’t forget.

Except somehow he’s being lead over to this guy’s friends and being introduced (“The name’s Lance, by the way.”) and settling down with a fresh drink. The friendly bartender from earlier grabs his bass from under his old stool and motions to him that she’s going to put it in the back.

And fuck it all because Lance is… he’s so alive. Especially to Keith, whose insides feel like a desert, he shines so fucking bright as he laughs and gestures wildly with his hands and drags Keith into the conversation, making sure he’s not left out, leans his forearms on the table… the way his own mysteriously coloured eyes crinkle up when he smiles. Keith doesn’t think he’s ever fallen so quickly for anybody in his life.

 _Let me take you home_ , he thinks. He just wants to bottle this little bit of warmth and life and take it with him wherever he goes. Lance is like the sun, all bronzed skin and chestnut hair and flashing smile and those eyes that look almost black in the low-lit smog of the bar.

\-- And he’s gone. Whoa. Where’d he go?

It’s fine, he’s just at the bar getting more drinks with that Naomi girl. Keith might be a bit more than buzzed now.

“So, what’s your deal, Keith?” says one of the guys left at their booth. Keith’s pretty sure his name is Kyle. “I mean, you’re obviously a nice guy. You’ve gotta be pretty nice to let Lance go all lovesick puppy on you.”

“Gotta be pretty nice to let any dude go lovesick puppy on you,” interrupts the other guy who will, henceforth, be known only as Dick in Keith’s mind.

“Yeah, he’s not making you uncomfortable or anything, right, man? ‘Cause we can tell him to stop if he is. I don’t think he’s quite grasped the whole ‘a time and a place’ thing.” Keith makes a mental note to change Kyle’s name to Dick-Kyle.

“Nah, he’s fine,” says Keith and the guys look at him skeptically. “Fuck, he sure is pretty, though, right?” he adds just to piss them off and a small part of him sings when they both instantly lean a little further away from him.

“I mean… yeah, sure, if you’re into that kind of thing,” says Dick and Keith tries not to smirk.

How did Lance end up here with people like this?

How did _Keith_ end up here with people like this?

_What am I doing?_

Lance suddenly pops back into existence beside the table with Naomi at his elbow. He’s holding a tray of shots but swaying like he maybe took a couple on the walk over here.

“What are we talking about? My beautiful face?” he says with a grin that’s starting to grow a little sloppy at the edges.

“Something like that,” says Keith with a smile.

And the night just descends into some sort of beautiful hell from then on. Lance is a handsy drunk, his arm creeping around Keith’s waist and over his neck and into his hair, fingers carding through, and Keith keeps catching him just staring at him with this lax, content smile on his face -- fucking hell, give him strength because this is a very beautiful but very _drunk_ man and all Keith wants is to take him home and into his bed. But he also wants to wake up in the morning with him warm in his arms, to get him a glass of water and some advil and listen to him bitch about his hangover, and the combination of feelings is so new, so young and sudden, that Keith is half sure his heart’s about to try climb up his throat and escape.

So when Lance leans far into Keith’s space to whisper, “D’you wanna get out of here?” his lips brushing against the shell of his ear, all Keith can do is nod his head quickly and gather up his jacket, running to the back room for his bass.

 

They’re blue. Lance’s eyes are blue. Keith can see them shining in the streetlight, deep and bright, as they walk along. Lance is still talking, curling into Keith where he has his arm strung around his shoulder; anecdotes about family and siblings and friends and classes. And he’s so animated even when he’s angry or sad, even as he deflates while talking about feeling so alone and pressured that he’d run off on a trip to LA, that Keith finds himself hanging on his every word. Everything about Lance is big. His voice. His emotions. His expressions and gestures. He’s a black hole, drawing everything else in.

He shivers, despite the hot Californian summer night, and Keith practically rips his jacket off to give it to him. It’s his mum’s jacket. He’s never let anyone else wear it. Not even Shiro. He only just met this guy. What is he doing?

_WhatamIdoingwhata--_

The thoughts are cut off when Lance tangles his fingers through Keith’s and pulls his arm around his shoulder again. Fuck, this is nice.

 

“Keith,” Lance whispers later when Keith is trying to untangle his arms around his neck and tuck him into bed, working against Lance and his own desires, “Keith,” he wraps one deliciously long leg around the back of Keith’s thigh to try and pull him closer, “Keith, don’t tell the bartender… But I’m only nineteen.” He giggles, hands slipping under Keith’s shirt to explore the planes of his stomach, and Keith sighs. And then, suddenly, he’s asleep, limbs going loose like cooked noodles, and Keith can finally pull away.

He leaves a glass of water and a bottle of advil beside his bed and turns to leave. But Keith can’t quite resist pushing up Lance’s bangs to place a kiss on his forehead before he goes to sleep on the couch. He can only hope that this gangly mess of sunshine will still want anything to do with him when he wakes up with a clear head and clear vision tomorrow.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You all ready for the dialogue-heavy, exposition chapter that's annoyingly totally necessary?  
> Yeah, this is def my least favourite chapter of them all but... we gotta do this. So hang onto your pants and here we go.

“Why are you on the couch?”

Keith wakes with a shout at Shiro’s voice, looking around wildly, before something pinches in his back and, suddenly, he’s on the floor.

“Good morning,” says Shiro.

“Morning,” Keith replies, face in the carpet.

“So, why were you destroying your back on the couch?”

Keith thinks about it for a long moment, frowning. There’s something throbbing in the back of his head, behind the hangover and the part screaming about the pain in his spine.

He shoots up. “Fuck. Lance!” Then he catches a glimpse of the time on Shiro’s watch. “Fuck. Balls. Shit. Work!”

Shiro just laughs as Keith sprints down the hall. Lance first, and then work. Somehow, his priorities have shifted without him even noticing it.

 

Which is exactly why, when Lance wakes up with a splitting headache and dry eyes and a mouth that tastes a little like puke, he’s first drawn to a scribble in neon pink sharpie across a piece of paper on the desk. His name and then a phone number. When he stumbles across the room to pick it up, he bumps the computer mouse and the whole thing wakes up to a video of Keith taking up the majority of the screen holding, once again, a sign with Lance’s name on it.

Lance hits play.

“Hey, Lance,” Keith is whispering, “I… uh… I had to go to work. I know that’s like, the number one excuse for leaving in the morning but -- I mean we didn’t even --! And you’re in _my_ bed so… But that’s not the point. I really had to go to work. Uh… I work in a gym. We start early. But I figured you’d want to sleep a bit later than 4am. Don’t worry, my brother should still be there, maybe one of my other housemates too… Though, not Matt. Pretty sure he didn’t sleep at home last night. Anyway, you’ll know Shiro when you see him; tall Asian guy with a scar across his nose and a prosthetic arm. I promise he’s not as scary as he looks. And he can give you this place’s address if you want it or point you in the direction of a train station or maybe even give you a lift, I don’t know what time he starts work today. And… um… what else?” Keith pauses here to blush violently. “I, uh… I really actually had a lot of fun last night and I’ve kinda been a bit… you know, lately so thanks and… um… if you wanna… I mean, if you ever want to see me again or something -- no pressure! -- that’s my number and you can… I don’t know, call it? Fuck, that was weird. Anyway, it was really nice meeting you. Uh, see you? Maybe? I’m just gonna go. Bye, Lance.”

The video shuts off and Lance lets his head fall onto the desk.

“Fuuuuuuck,” he groans, “that was too cute.” It’s unfair that Keith can be both hot as hell and more adorable than Lance’s niece at the same time.

Finally, he raises his head to look around the room. He’d been too far gone last night to notice much of anything. He smiles at the water and painkillers beside the bed. The walls, which he first thought were painted a dark colour, are actually just almost completely covered in band posters. The case Keith had been carrying last night is propped up against a wall behind an empty guitar stand, sitting next to an occupied stand holding an acoustic guitar. In fact, looking around, there is an awful lot of music paraphernalia around the room. From whatever instrument it was that Keith had been lugging around all night, to the acoustic guitar to the keyboard in the corner, the band posters, the books of sheet music and musical theory along the shelves… It’s a lot, crammed into such a tiny room.

“Whoa,” is all Lance says before he shakes his head and reaches for the glass of water.

 

The whole damn apartment is some sort of music store, it has to be. There’s another keyboard in the living room along with an electric guitar lying across the couch, a bass guitar with it’s guts all over the place on the coffee table, another electric guitar in a case by the kitchen, not to mention the massive electric drum kit sitting in a corner. Meanwhile, there are only two mugs on the shelf and the single couch is sprouting stuffing and springs in every direction. There’s no TV. No game system. The living room is bare except for the instruments, the couch, the coffee table and one mostly-empty bookshelf in the corner. And somehow, despite its relative nakedness, it’s still cramped, the walls feeling far too close.

These people must be music junkies if they’d rather spend what money they have on instruments than get a new damn couch.

“Oh, hey,” says a voice from behind him and Lance almost leaps out of his skin. “You must be Lance.”

He whirls around to face the man who must be Keith’s brother and -- hot damn -- good looking runs in this family. Holy shit.

“You know my name!” he squeaks because apparently he always panics in the presence of pretty people.

“Uh, yeah. Keith might have mentioned something.”

Of course Keith said something.  It would have been much weirder if he’d left for work just assuming this guy would be fine with a stranger in their apartment.

“Ah,” says Lance intelligibly.

“He said you might… need a lift?”

And Shiro is clearly politely saying, ‘How can I help you out of my house right this second?’ but Lance is absorbed in the wonder of the music shop apartment.

“Whose are all of these?” he asks, completely ignoring Shiro’s question.

“Uh…” says Shiro, scratching at his neck. “Well, the drums are Allura’s -- she’s our housemate -- and _that_ guitar,” he points to the one by the kitchen, “and the keyboard belong to our other housemate. This one’s mine,” he picks up the guitar on the couch by the neck. “And the bass, of course, is Keith’s. Don’t touch it if you want to live.”

“Keith plays bass guitar?” Lance is sure his eyes are like little stars, if Shiro’s confused but amused expression is anything to go by.

“He sure does,” he replies. “Bass and guitar and piano and a little bit of drums.”

And the smile that stretches across Lance’s face is not the sort that belongs on a boy who’s only known another boy for less than sixteen hours. “Wow. So, are you guys all in a band or something? What are you called? Are you any good? Can I come and see you play? Where do you play?”

“Whoa, whoa, Lance, slow down,” Shiro’s laughing. “Yes, we’re in a band. It’s just us four housemates. We’re called _Castle of Lions_. I think we’re pretty good but Keith’ll tell you that there are thousands of bands better than us. Yes, you can come see us play. We… uh… well, I guess we play wherever we can. We’ve got some stuff on youtube, though, so you can look us up.”

Lance plops onto the couch, running his hands reverently half an inch above Keith’s bass on the table like he wants to touch it but is wary of Shiro’s warning. “That’s so cool,” he breathes.

“Uh…” says Shiro awkwardly, “Yeah, I guess.”

“How’d you get started?” Lance asks and Shiro finally drops onto the couch beside him.

Allura finds them when she comes home from work two hours later, talking about Keith and the band. She hasn’t seen Shiro so genuinely upbeat in weeks.

 

***

 

People who work in customer service will all agree that it is soul destroying. There’s a certain kind of death your heart undergoes when you’ve been smiling for seven straight hours and it’s only made worse when you’re conning people out of their money with a product you know, and _they_ know, and everyone knows, they’re never going to use. It’s a farce, trying to upsell people to a full membership with the gym, a farce on a Shakespearean level. So much humming and hawing and ‘darling, what do you think?’ and ‘of course, honey, you’re so healthy and fit and functional as a human being, of course you should buy a membership’ while Keith stands there, his service smile becoming more of a villain’s grimace with every passing moment.

 _Just admit you’re going to go home and eat a whole packet of chips by yourself while watching_ Game of Thrones _already so we can both get out of here._

The worst is that he can see Lance in his mind, cocooned in Keith’s bed like a little Lance-burrito, his fist curled next to his head on the pillow and a serene expression on his face, so still and so close but Keith can’t even go and see if there’s a chance for anything because he’s stuck here with this Mary Sue batting her eyelashes at him as she fills in a waver. He’d looked so young, so soft and innocent, while he slept and Keith would do just about anything to get out of here and get to know him better, maybe see if he still thought Keith was pretty when he was sober.

“So,” says the girl and Keith forces a smile back onto his face when he looks up from pretending to do something at the computer, “Do _you_ teach any of the classes? Maybe I could request you as my personal trainer.”

He laughs and it sounds so foreign from his throat, the exact same laugh he’s heard over and over from ten thousand other lying employees in stores who have to pretend to be interested in customers if they want to get paid.

Oh, _getting paid_. Now, that’s nice.

“No, no,” he laughs like a liar, “you need qualifications for that. I just work the desk.”

“Really? With those arms? They aren’t qualification enough?”

Keith feels his eye twitch.

_How the fuck do I get out of this?_

“Apparently not, seeing as I’m still here. Now, the studios are down the stairs and to the left, there’s a stationary bike room upstairs along with other rooms for classes that are machine-specific, the free use machines are straight through that door and the weights are one door on from that. You’ll get a text from a personal trainer before the end of the day, asking about details and your schedule,” he says, smile never shifting from his face, all the while thinking, ‘is this clear enough for you? Please leave me alone.’

Thankfully, she does. Though her face falls a little.

Keith sighs in relief the moment she disappears around the corner. And then he jumps when he feels someone breath down his neck.

“Dude!” says Rolo, right in his ear. “She was totally into you! I don’t know why you never go for these girls… they’re practically throwing themselves at you.”

Now, just as there’s an established and recognisable ‘customer service smile’ there is also a ‘gay smile’ that is unmistakable within certain communities.

“I don’t know,” he replies out loud, “she just wasn’t my type.”

In all honesty, Rolo is very much more Keith’s type; carefree and fun, a bit of a mess but doesn’t give a shit. And Keith thought he might be in trouble the first day he turned up for work here and found he’d be sharing multiple shifts with the guy. At least, that was until he had to sit through two months of Rolo-conversation and the constant uncomfortable topics he insists on covering.

“How could that not be your type? Did you see that ass?”

There it is.

“Wasn’t really looking,” says Keith and settles at the computer, back to pretending to be busy and dreaming of what it might have been like if he could have been home when Lance woke up.

Would he do that sleepy blink? Is he the sort that wakes up in a panic when they sleep in an unfamiliar room? What would he say? Would he let Keith cuddle around him and keep him safe from the world? Would he let Keith keep him at all?

God, would you listen to him? One night of drunken conversation and smiles and he’s gone already.

“Keith, my man,” Rolo is saying, “that’s exactly why you gotta look for these things. A girl walks in and you go through the checklist: butt, boobs, waist, face. In that order.”

“Oh, fuck off, Rolo,” Keith replies. “You know you’d kill anyone who thought about your sister like that so why do you do it?”

“Yeah, but that’s ‘cause Nyma’s a sensitive flower.”

Keith’s pretty sure he once saw Nyma punch a guy in the face in a Wendy’s parking lot at 1am, but that’s beside the point. He twists around on the exercise ball they were given instead of rolly-chairs to look at his co-worker. “And it never occured to you that anyone else could be a sensitive flower? That maybe that girl would be a little disgusted in you? That maybe I’m more than a little disgusted in you? I could be a sensitive flower, Rolo,” he turns back to the computer, “and you’d never know because your head’s too far up your own ass.”

He watches as Rolo chews his tongue for a second in the reflection off his screen before the other man finally turns his back as well. “Fuck you, too, man,” he grumbles and Keith smiles.

And then Keith’s phone vibrates on the glass tabletop. He snatches for it like a kid racing their sibling for the last cookie. Rolo raises one eyebrow but doesn’t say anything. It’s still vibrating in his hand, a string of incoming messages.

 **Unknown Number (9:58am)** :

_Keith! Your living room is like a music store!_

_Also your brother is intimidatingly hot_

_Does hotness run in the family?_

_That’s just unfair_

_This is Lance btw_

_Text me!_

**(9:59am):**

_Also why didn’t you tell me you play in a band at any point last night?_

_That’s like the #1 thing you should be using to pick people up_

_Not that you picked me up_

_It was more like me picking you up and then you taking care of me all night_

_Thanks for that btw_

_Also thanks for the water_

_And the cute video_

_V cute_

_Okay_

_Text me back!_

“Oh, I see how it is,” says Rolo. “You won’t go for any of these girls because you’ve already got one waiting at home for you.”

Keith looks up from his phone to see Rolo sitting there, arms crossed and lying back in his exercise-ball-chair with a knowing smirk on his face. And he suddenly realises there was the stupidest, dopiest grin on his face. He wipes it off in an instant.

“Wh-what? No, it’s not…” he tries.

“‘W-w-w-what? It’s not like th-th-that, I promise’,” Rolo mocks and snatches the phone from Keith’s hand.

Keith swears.

“What?” Rolo’s laughing which is… a good sign? Maybe? “You don’t even have this chick’s name in your phone! That’s cold, man. I didn’t --”

Oh. He’s just read the name from the messages.

“Shit,” he says. And he silently hands the phone back.

“Yeah,” says Keith. Here it comes. Here come the words and the looks and the disgust and the fear of coming into work.

“Fuck, I’m sorry, Keith.”

That was… definitely not what he’d been expecting.

“Huh?” he says.

“Now I feel bad for ribbing you all this time,” says Rolo. “I… Man, that must have sucked. And you obviously didn’t want to tell me so… Sorry.”

“Uh… thanks?” says Keith, still lost at this sudden shift in tracks.

“Maybe you’re right,” Rolo goes on, “and I do have my head too far up my ass to notice anything.”

This is far too sudden of a turn around.

“What? Like, yeah, you really do but I was kind of expecting you to be a dick about this so, I guess… You’re only a dick to women? I don’t know. I’m no good at comforting people -- and why am I even comforting you in the first place? What the hell?”

Rolo just laughs. “So we’re cool?”

Keith shrugs. “As cool as we ever were, I guess.”

So silence falls across the reception hall as they both turn back to their computers, sending automated emails to people who never signed up for ‘enough’ extra classes. And it reigns for a long while, through three customers coming and signing in, through one phone call and one yoga class letting out. Rolo doesn’t even comment on all the women coming out in tight leggings. There’s just the distant beat of the bass-heavy music in the machine room and the shouting of some instructor upstairs whose voice carries even through the floor, telling them they can do it and ‘just one more set’ and ‘push through the pain’, and the sound of Rolo bouncing on his exercise ball when he gets bored. Keith quietly lets his face soften as he finally texts Lance back and receives a ‘we should go on a proper date! A sober one!’ text in return. Until, at last, the silence falls like all great empires.

“So, you play in a band?” Rolo says eventually and Keith can’t help his smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a firm believer in people's ability to change and you can pry my optimism in that from my cold dead hands. It's the only optimism I have left and I'm not letting it go easily.
> 
> (You still here? Not put off by this chapter? I swear next chapter we get back into the writing of the previous style.)
> 
> See you in a couple days!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lyrics featured aren't actual lyrics. They're just me mucking around, trying to emulate the same style as CatB -- and failing for the sake of the fic. Yeah... that's totally why I failed. It was all intentional....

Time flies when you’re having fun. That’s the phrase isn’t it? But time feels like it’s flowing like some sort of indie film for Keith right now, with sepia filters and flower crowns, where ten years have apparently passed but the actors still look the same. He could see his relationship with Lance stretched out in a montage of smiling clips of them on a merry-go-round somewhere with instrumental music playing over the top; them on that first sober date when Keith took him to the pier and they’d spent the day getting sunburnt and wandering in and out of cafes and the arcade and looking longingly around Pacific Park wondering if maybe one day Keith would have the disposable income to go on more than two rides (Lance had offered to pay for his tickets but, fuck it, some things are a matter of pride); the first night Lance came to see them play when he’d sat alone at a bench in a bar, one of about fifteen or so people there, and grinned the whole time; the time Lance’s neighbour caught them making out in the hallway because the three steps into the apartment he’d rented on AirBnB seemed too far; Lance slowly giving up on spending time with Kyle and Dick and Naomi in favour of hanging around the gym, talking to Keith and Rolo as they worked, and then walking the two blocks over to the Starbucks where Keith worked afternoons with him and sitting in a corner with one ridiculously complicated coffee, scrolling through his phone idly.

They’re a cliche. That couple who seem lost to everything else. Until time seems entirely irrelevant. Time might fly when you’re having fun but who cares when time doesn’t exist?

They spend most of their time in Lance’s apartment because no one wants to hang out with their boyfriend in a tiny flat with three other people in it.

If they _are_ boyfriends. They haven’t really talked about it. And, sure Lance calls Keith ‘babe’ more often than not and they spend as much time as is physically possible in each other’s company, they hold hands and have sex and wake up cuddling in the morning. Keith’s stuff is strewn across Lance’s floor and he’s currently in the kitchen attempting to make breakfast so Lance can sleep a little longer. But if they’ve never had the conversation, are they really boyfriends?

“Shit,” Keith swears as a trickle of smoke floating into sight breaks him out of his reverie.

He sighs and flips the fourth blackened pancake onto the plate.

There’s the sound of bare feet on linoleum for a second before Lance’s arms are snaking around Keith’s waist and he’s pressing his forehead down on the top of Keith’s fluffy bedhead.

“Something smells like a forest fire,” he mumbles sleepily before he lifts his head to squint at the plate, obviously not having put his contacts in yet. “Aw, babe. You made breakfast. That’s so sweet.”

“I honestly can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic right now,” Keith grumbles, turning off the heat and dumping his mess straight into the trash.

“Well, you tried and that’s sweet enough,” says Lance, trying to gather Keith back into his arms again. It’s not entirely clear whether this is a sign of affection or he’s just still so tired that he needs something to physically hold him up.

“The coffee should be fine, though,” says Keith, twisting in his maybe-boyfriend’s hold to wrap his own arms around his neck, and Lance laughs.

“Of course. I’d expect nothing less from you.”

They kiss slowly, Keith driving up on his toes to push into the other’s mouth solidly. Lance still tastes like morning breath and there’s soot in Keith’s hair but neither really cares because the morning sun is streaming in the window, the smell of coffee and good intentions is in the air, and they’re solid and warm and willing in each other’s arms. Lance winds both arms around Keith’s ribs to pull their chests tightly together, lifting the other man a little so that his toes barely carry any weight anymore and Keith gasps, digging his fingers a little deeper into Lance’s hair. It’s slow and deep and unhurried as the coffee cools in its pot -- and Lance’s phone starts vibrating in his pyjama pocket.

Keith pulls back a little. “You need to get that?” he breathes.

Lance just guides him back in by his chin.

The vibration stops and immediately starts again.

“Fucking --” Lance grumbles and pulls away to yank it out of his pocket. “Hola, Mamá…” He quickly kisses Keith on the cheek and walks back into the bedroom to take the call.

And Keith just looks around at the mess he’s made in the kitchen with a sigh before pouring himself a coffee and grabbing a cloth to start cleaning it up. He can hear bits and pieces of Lance’s conversation through the door; a mix of Spanish and English, littered with ‘ _Si, Mamá_ ’s and deep sighs. He feels like he can see Lance frowning through the walls.

He ends up eating cereal in the window seat, feet tucked up underneath him, coffee resting on the floor between sips, and half a song running through his head. It’s so strange that this is what his life is like now. Because the constant stream of ‘what am I doing?’ is always so quiet in Lance’s presence, everything is bright and loud and meaningful, changeable and colourful in Lance’s presence, and the moment he leaves the room, Keith is back to this…  this _waiting_. Waiting for things to be different, waiting for recognition, waiting for Lance to come back and smile at him again.

Keith frowns, finger tapping a beat on one knee, and then he hums.

> _I feel so… hollow_

He sings the line and then shakes his head. No, that’s not it. Tilting  his head a little in thought, he hums the melody that just passed through his brain again.

> _Gathering scum_

He huffs a laugh through his nose. Yeah, that’s what it’s like. He’s a pond in a public park that sits there waiting and waiting for some ecosystem to grow around it -- ducks or frogs or anything to make it their home -- but nothing will come because he’s been too stagnant for too long and the scum’s already formed over the surface.

> _Stagnant_ ,

He sings softly to the window, frown still on his face and the morning LA cityscape lost to his eyes.

> _Gathering scum_
> 
> _So I need you_

Uh… Nope, he’s lost it again.

“Were you just singing?” Lance’s voice. Keith didn’t even hear him come back in. He jumps a little, sloshing milk onto his leg.

“Blegh!” he says, leaping up, heading to the kitchen and the paper towel. “Yeah, a bit. Was that your mum? I thought you usually called her.”

“Uh, yeah, I usually do,” says Lance.

“But?” Keith’s wiping milk and bits of cereal from his bare leg now, foot right up on the bench without a care. “It sounded like there was a but in there.”

“She’s just…” he sighs. “My brother’s been freaking out about college admissions and my youngest brother is going out of his mind with boredom because he broke his leg and is confined to the house and my sister just lost her job and moved back home and… I just feel like she has more important things to be doing than listening to me rant about Universal Studios or the Hollywood sign. Things she’d rather be doing. So I’ve kind of… not been calling the last few days.”

“Lance.” Keith drops his foot back to the floor and walks over to him, frown etched clearly between his eyebrows. “She’s your mum. And if anything you’ve told me about her is true, she wants to hear from you. I mean, shit, _my_ mum gets pissy when I don’t pick up her calls and she’s not even my real mum.”

“Exactly! Your mum wanted you so much she basically fought the government for you. Mine just kind of… got dumped with me.”

“Okay, one: she didn’t fight the government, she just didn’t kick me out when I aged out of foster care. Two: what the hell makes you think that wasn’t the best dumping of her life? Fuck, Lance, if someone had dropped you in my lap nineteen years ago I would have been like, ‘You sure? I can keep this? Fuck yeah, that’s a win for me.’ Just because she didn’t select you from a line-up of babies doesn’t mean your mum doesn’t love you.”

Lance laughs. “You would have been a baby yourself nineteen years ago.”

“Not the point,” Keith snaps. “The point is that I have heard nine thousand stories about this woman over the last… two weeks -- really? It’s only been two weeks since I met you? -- and there’s no way in hell she’s wishing she didn’t have to talk to you. Have you ever thought your siblings were a burden on her?”

“But my siblings are… you know. Great. They’re clever and successful and driven and… I’m just goofy ol’ Lance. We’re not exactly cut from the same cloth.”

God, Keith wants to punch him. And he does. But he holds back and only punches him in the shoulder and not the face like he wants.

“You’re going to make me mad if you keep going like that.” He takes Lance’s face between his hands. “You are… you are fucking magical, you know that, right?” The semi-echo of Lance’s words on their first meeting has a smirk rising on Keith’s face. “You really have no idea, do you? Have you somehow managed to never see your eyes?” And Lance is smiling now, too. “They’re so fucking bright, Lance. And the way you care, the way you feel everything so deeply, your _empathy_ , your kindness, your selflessness. Shit, Lance, how can you not see that? She loves you. No one who’s ever met you couldn’t.”

Lance pushes his forehead against Keith’s hard, almost grinding them together as if, if he presses hard enough, he can engulf him and they’ll become the same person -- that way they’ll always be together and, the moment one of them doubts themselves, the other will be there with a punch in the shoulder and some awkwardly phrased words of encouragement. Blind faith. Absolute trust. It will get them through.

“Is two weeks too soon to tell you I love you?” Lance whispers and Keith snorts.

“Absolutely. But it doesn’t feel like too soon,” he says, pressing back with his own weight. “I love you, too.”

 

***

  


It’s 2am and Keith has to get up in another two hours but Shiro can hear him quietly strumming his acoustic, even with his bedroom door closed, when he comes in from work. The strumming stops for a moment and then there’s a muttered curse and a dull thump, some mumbling, and then the guitar is back.

He must be writing again. And not having much luck with it by the sound of it.

Shiro knocks quietly on his door and waits for the sound of swearing and the fumbling to stop before he opens it.

“Keith,” he whispers, “are you planning to go to sleep at any point tonight?”

“I thought I had something but it just won’t come out of my head,” his brother replies.

Shiro stoops to pick up a loose sheet of paper that must have missed Keith’s frantic tidying of all evidence. It’s a mess of different coloured pens with tiny, terrible cartoons of the band doodled in the corners, Keith’s chicken-scratch handwriting scrawled across it, crossed out and rewritten, chords bolded above the lyrics by simply drawing the letters over and over again in place and finger picking marked out in a strange fusion of TAB and proper notation where appropriate, numbers drawn on shaky lines.

“Keith, you…” says Shiro, “You actually feel like this?”

“What?” Keith looks up from fiddling with his strings to see Shiro with the page and winces. “I don’t know… sometimes.”

“Who’s the waterfall?”

“Huh?”

> _You’re a river,_
> 
> _You’re a waterfall,_
> 
> _And you move me just like everyone else._
> 
> _‘Till we’re falling_
> 
> _And we’re falling._
> 
>  
> 
> _Stagnant,_
> 
> _Gathering scum._
> 
> _So I need you_
> 
> _To come mix me up_.
> 
>  
> 
> _Come on, darlin’, let me take you h--_

“Fucking stop, Shiro. I know it’s shit. I told you it wasn’t coming out of my head properly,” Keith begs, snatching the paper back with a red face.

“Is it Lance? Is he your waterfall?” Shiro’s voice is soft, understanding, and Keith hates it.

“Shi _ro!”_

“I like him. He’s a good kid. And if he… I’m a bit jealous, honestly.” Shiro plops down beside Keith on the comforter and scoots back so he’s leaning against the wall. “I kind of wish I’d noticed you weren’t happy here. I don’t know what I would have done about it, since you weren’t happy at home either, but I would have liked to have tried.”

“Shiro…” says Keith. “You know it’s not because I don’t trust you. Sometimes I just can’t put my feelings into words. You know that. Right?”

“Yeah, I know,” he smiles, “And if Lance can draw whatever you’re feeling far enough out of its cave for you to punch it in the face then I’m glad you found him.”

Keith just nudges him with his shoulder, leaning against the wall too.

“Oh!” says Shiro suddenly. “Sal finally agreed to let us play at his place. He’s not offering as much as he normally would for a live act, since he’s already paying me for bartending -- ‘ _Why would I pay the same person twice_ ?’” he mimics his boss with a roll of his eyes, “They’re different jobs _and_ more hours, Sal! Anyway -- if he likes us enough, we could have a regular gig.” He nudges Keith back. “How’s that? Did I do good for once?”

Keith scoffs. “You always do good.”

“Really? That’s not what you said after Melanie Law’s Big 13th Birthday Bash!” Shiro laughs.

“Get out of my room and go to sleep, you idiot.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **People reading the series out of order:** There are some references to a conversation that takes place in Cocoon. You'll absolutely still understand what's going on. Just so you know that's where that conversation happens, you didn't miss it, you're not going crazy.
> 
>  **Everyone else:** You know where this is going so... hold onto your hats ;)
> 
> Music: It's all CatB again.  
> 1st -- ['7'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dfUxE7ORAk) (and I have a massive headcanon for this song in regards to Allura but... idk if I'll ever get around to writing it...)  
> 2nd -- ['Hourglass'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEzQAdoolxQ&t=0s&list=PLdjcZbWbiPbKyER1kXEtGiu8zJTXFtCso&index=8) (also here's another [link to the video clip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plbgQKQFVcA) because, while it isn't the best audio experience if you just want to listen to the song, it is pretty good. Also, it has Ewan MacGregor in it so... yeah.)  
> 3rd -- another little bit of ['Cocoon'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Va75GaPv5jY&list=PLdjcZbWbiPbKyER1kXEtGiu8zJTXFtCso&index=1&t=0s)

The bar is dark in that controlled lighting kind of way. Neon blue behind the bar and stripes of purple across the ceiling, the stage flooded from every direction with lilac and white and red. The music pumps through the room like a virus. 

This is the biggest show Keith has ever played. There have to be more than 200 people crammed into Sal’s tiny bar. What brought them there, he doesn’t know. He’d like to think it was  _ Castle of Lions _ but they’re a total unknown. It can’t be them. Maybe this is a normal night for them. But it’s all Keith can do to keep his eyes on his bass, and his fingers moving. Keep the beat going. Lance is out there somewhere, probably grinning like always. And Keith hadn’t lied all those weeks ago when he told him he wanted this -- wanted to play and play all day long. 

He’s going to prove he belongs here. On this stage. Playing music he loves. In front of 200 people. Fuck, he belongs in front of even bigger crowds. Lance agrees, he knows it.

He can feel his head moving unconsciously, bobbing, and now his feet are moving. Fuck, he’s almost dancing. Keith doesn’t dance. Shiro catches his eye and grins around the lyrics, his own arm keeping time in steady, metronome strums across his guitar. 

> _ And I’d beg you, but you know I’m never home. _

Keith matches Shiro’s teasing gaze with his own as he steps forward, belting out the chorus’ harmony to meet his brother’s enthusiasm.

> _ And I love you, but I need another year alone. _
> 
> _ And I’ve tried to ignore it every time you phone _
> 
> _ But I never come close. _

He can practically see Allura’s face the first time she played this song for them. The way her voice had trembled when she said the word ‘love’ and the way she’d cried in the silence afterwards before coming clean about why she’d run across the Atlantic to America in the first place. And he sticks his tongue between his teeth to try and focus all that emotion, all those memories into the music. 

And there’s Lance, tucked away against the bar, the neon blue highlighting his face like an alien. He’s grinning just as Keith knew he would be and, when their eyes meet, he throws both his arms in the air and whoops. 

God, he’s a groupie. Their first decent gig and he’s already a groupie. 

Still, Keith has to step back from his mic so it doesn’t pick up his laugh as the song draws to a close, Shiro’s voice rolling like waves with Matt’s guitar at the crest. 

“Thank you!” Shiro shouts out over the crowd and people are cheering. They’re actually cheering. Not just politely clapping like spectators at a golf tournament. There are whoops and wolf whistles and screams and Keith might be about to have an aneurism but there’s no time for that because Shiro says, “You might know this next one,” and launches straight into the Chili Peppers’  _ Californication _ to the sound of yet more cheers. 

 

***

 

They get the regular gig and Keith goes home to Lance’s apartment like it’s some sort of celebratory action and not the routine they’d settled into after almost a month of this. His toothbrush stays in the bathroom here now. He has to face the facts: he’s living in an AirBnB and the owner has no idea.

Afterwards, when they’re lying there still breathless and Lance has insisted on draping all his sweaty, gangly limbs over Keith’s body, Keith just breathes because… fuck, this is it, isn’t it? This is his waterfall into the stagnant park pond. Lance and this one gig and suddenly he’s alive again. He can move. He’s still alive and he’d never been entirely sure until this moment. 

The air cools the sweat on their skin and the traffic noise slowly drifts into Keith’s consciousness and he doesn’t even care anymore. Because Lance is there, long limbs wrapped around him like an octopus, lips placing tiny, deliberate kisses against his neck.

They’re dating, aren’t they? It’s obvious. Keith was just being paranoid before. He’d looked at Lance and seen every foster family he’d had before the Shiroganes. The ones who’d smiled and welcomed him and sometimes bought him something new in still-hard, never-used-before plastic to prove they loved him. And then they sent him back. Like he’d just been some sort of vacation for them from their regular lives. And he’d been waiting, just as he did with the Shiroganes in the months leading up to his eighteenth birthday, waiting and waiting for Lance to sit him down and tell him he had to leave and when he needed his bags packed and how he was sure he’d find someone, he just had to change everything about himself. Then someone would love him. But Lance isn’t  _ those  _ families. He’s like the Shiroganes who, when they finally did sit him down at the dining table still spread with his homework and Shiro’s college textbooks, told him that he wasn’t just free to stay with them after his birthday but that they  _ wanted  _ him to stay. They asked him to stay. Like it was his choice. Like he had anywhere else to go. They loved him and they wanted him to stay with them even after the government stopped paying them to put up with him. They wanted to pay for his college. They wanted him to be their son. And Lance is like the Shiroganes. Keith is sure of it now. They’re dating.

“I have to go back to New York next week,” says Lance quietly.

They’re  _ not  _ dating. 

He’s sending Keith back. 

“Oh,” he says aloud, “What day next week?”

“Wednesday. So I was thinking we should do something.”

“Yeah,” says Keith. “Of course.”

And Lance is still talking, voice soft and breath gentle against Keith’s neck where he’s still coiled into his body, but Keith doesn’t hear a word. Because Lance is leaving. His Keith-vacation is over and he’s going back to the real world where he doesn’t have to deal with any of Keith’s shit -- his fears of stagnation, his exhaustion, his perpetual poverty. Lance gets to go home and leave all that behind. Leave Keith behind. And maybe Keith should have realised this was always coming. Lance could never stay in LA forever. 

“Babe? You listening?”

“Yeah,” lies Keith. “Yeah, I’m listening.”

 

***

 

‘Doing something’, it turns out, is just having breakfast one morning with the band, minus Matt who’s off tutoring some middle school kid, in the cafe where Allura works. Other than that, the half a week before Lance leaves passes with so little change from the norm that Keith can’t quite believe it when he’s standing in the pristine, glowing white waiting room at LAX at a time that feels like midday but is really some time early in the morning. Naomi and her band of dicks are standing nearby, chatting amongst themselves. Keith has no idea when Lance last spent any time with them but, judging by the stink eyes they’re sending over occasionally, it’s probably been too long by their standards at least. He’s half tempted to kiss Lance just to piss them off. But then he calls Keith’s name and Keith turns to look at him, all puppy eyes and soft skin, and he forgets all about spite. He leans up and kisses him for his own right.

Lance has one arm wrapped around Keith’s waist, oblivious to any less-than-friendly glances that might be cast their way, and one hand clasping at Keith’s fingers. And, for one second, Keith can actually believe this is real.

“I, um… I’ll call you when I land? Is that cool?” says Lance, head bowed over their joined hands.

_ You’re leaving me here _ .

“If you want to,” he replies. 

“I’m gonna miss you.”

_ Not enough to keep me. _

“Uh-huh,” says Keith.

“Keith,” says Lance. “Look at me.”

He doesn’t. Lance tips his chin up with one finger.

“Please, baby, let me see you smile one more time,” he says and Keith frowns. Lance just laughs. 

He’s leaving. They haven’t defined anything. They haven’t talked about what happens now. And it’s because  _ nothing  _ happens now. Keith knows how this goes. He’s been here too many times before not to know. 

But it’s also  _ Lance _ and he’s never had a Lance before. He doesn’t want him to go and leave Keith behind.

He looks back at the ground and Lance stops laughing. 

“I’m sorry.” Lance presses his lips to Keith’s hair, to his forehead, brushes his nose against Keith’s in an attempt to get him to raise his face and let him kiss him properly. “I shouldn’t be laughing.”

Fuck it.

Keith grabs Lance’s face in both his hands, eyes blazing, and smashes their mouths together. Teeth and the faint taste of blood before Lance realises what’s happening and softens his lips. It’s not gentle by any means. Keith is pressing up hard on his toes, pulling Lance down into him by his own face. It’s almost like he’s trying to eat him. He can’t leave if Keith’s eaten him. He bites and sucks and pushes into Lance’s mouth, feels his not-boyfriend grasping at the T-shirt over his waist with both hands, yet more effort to pull them ever closer together, his every action screaming, ‘Don’t go. Don’t leave me. Stay here. Stay with me,’ and knowing all along that Lance never will. The real world beckons and it’s time for the fantasy to end. 

He pulls away. “Goodbye, Lance.”

And, with that, he turns on his heel and forces himself not to look back as he walks away. 

 

***

 

Lance leaves.  _ Castle  _ keeps playing at Sal’s. They pick up another regular show in an underground joint in Silver Lake. The extra cash lets them finally move out of Derek’s garage and into a tiny, downtown studio and they take the opportunity without a second’s hesitation. But it’s still not enough to give up working two minimum wage jobs each and Keith finds himself giving up on going to sleep entirely on nights they have gigs. 

Rolo doesn’t blink an eye when Keith starts turning up stinking of spilt beer and weed, dark, bruised bags under his eyes. He just starts picking him up a coffee when he does a run in the morning. Needless to say, he doesn’t have to worry so much about being awkwardly hit on when he looks like an extra from a cheap zombie movie. So at least that’s a weight off his shoulders. But Rolo’s really stepped up, pulled his head of his ass, and kept his mouth shut about all the tightly clothed women that wander passed them all day. 

Although, during a lull one day, as the computer screen swims before Keith’s stinging eyes, he does say, “So what happened to that guy you pulled that one time?” 

And Keith has to just stare at him for a full minute, lest he punch him or burst into tears. 

Luckily, his shift ends fifteen minutes later and he can haul himself off his exercise ball, shuffle the two blocks over to Starbucks, and start the hell of customer service all over again. 

But, when he crashes face first into his mattress at the end of the day, he can hear Lance’s voice in his memories.

“What do you want, Keith? What do you want right  _ now _ ?”

_ I just want to play. And if this is what it takes to do that, then so be it. _

And he’ll roll onto his back and reach for his acoustic because Lance believed in him. He might have abandoned him to return to the real world but Lance had believed Keith would make it and, at this point, Keith would rather stab himself in the eye than disappoint that boy.

He’s going to make it. Everyone else can go fuck themselves.

 

***

 

They’re packing up in a tiny back room one night after playing the underground club -- ‘The Lion’s Den’ and Keith is half sure they only booked them to keep with the lion theme but, shit, a decent gig is a decent gig -- when a guy comes in wearing a neat, blue three piece suit. The next act is already playing and they can hear it rumble through the walls. 

“Heya  _ Castle of Lions _ ,” says the man. “My name’s Jackson Blaytz and I work for a company called Altea.”

“You’re a talent scout,” says Shiro, taking the card the man holds out, glancing down at it as if he’s suddenly become an expert in forged documents and can tell real from fake.

“That I am,” says the man and things get a bit crazy after that. 

 

Keith quits his Starbucks job. He can afford to lose one of them now and he’s far more attached to the gym and Rolo. He actually kind of likes the guy once he stops being such a dick all the time. He spends his afternoons sleeping off the gigs that Blaytz has them running all over town playing, and writing. Altea wants them to come out with an EP before they’ll sponsor and promote a full album. 

So, Keith gets back from work, showers off any lingering scent of last night’s show and sleeps until evening when he plugs in his keyboard, picks up his acoustic guitar and buries himself in music until he physically passes out.

Shiro can hear him playing through the walls again. It’s only late afternoon but he wouldn’t be surprised if they wake up to another noise complaint from the neighbours again.

> _ You know when you’re gone I struggle at night _
> 
> _ Dreams of you fucking me all the time. _
> 
> _ No, I know you’re tied up and I know your phone’s fucked _
> 
> _ I’m craving your calls like a soldier’s wife. _
> 
> _ I wanna bring you home myself _
> 
> _ Bring you home myself. _

He scoops up Matt’s stray shoe from the floor and flings it at Keith’s closed door.

“Keith! Stop playing sad indie music and just fucking call him already!” he shouts.

“I’m playing this because I can’t!” Keith shouts back. 

“Then write your own sad indie music! We’re supposed to be working on an EP here. Anything but that song. I don’t want to hear any more about someone fucking my baby brother. You’re twelve years old, for Christ’s sake!”

“I’ll be twenty-one next month, you idiot brother!”

“You’ll always be twelve to me!”

Keith’s only reply is to go back to playing that exact same song, only at twice the volume. 

> _ And I’m so impatient when you’re not mine _
> 
> _ I just wanna catch up on all the lost times. _
> 
> _ And I’ll say I’m sorry if I sound sordid _
> 
> _ ‘Cause all I really ever want is you. _

“ _ Keith _ !” Matt’s other shoe hits the door.

Keith just laughs but the next morning he comes back from work with a sheepish smile and an announcement that he might have a new song for them. He slides one of his dumpster-fire sheets of handwritten lyrics and chords onto the table between them. The words ‘Follow You’ are scrawled across the top.

 

***

 

The EP sells. A record deal is signed. Keith has to wake up pinching himself most mornings. Because  _ Follow You _ , re-recorded and cleaned up for the album, hit no.1 and stayed there for three weeks. He hasn’t seen Lance for going on eight months now. Even Shiro’s stopped assuming that everything he plays is about him. But Keith sometimes still hears Lance’s voice in his head. Maybe he’s going mad.

_ You really have no idea, do you? _

_ Well, you tried and that’s sweet enough. _

_ I’ll learn karate and protect you from the paps. _

_ What do you want, Keith? What do you want right  _ now?

The problem is, the answer to that last question is quickly changing from ‘music’ to ‘Lance’. 

He rolls over in bed. It’s almost 5am. Just a few months ago this would have felt like a luxurious sleep in but he’s quit his gym job too, now. And 5am is suddenly much too early. Still, he has half a song in his head and he has to get it out before he forgets it. So he rolls over and scrounges around under his bed for a pen and the pad of paper he always keeps there. Taking a deep breath, he puts pen to paper and it all just flows out of him.

> _ I fell straight into your arms _
> 
> _ Like a drunk who’s been on it, _
> 
> _ All morning  _
> 
> _ And the sun’s up _
> 
> _ And my head’s fucked. _
> 
> _ And immediately I grab you _
> 
> _ You go all red  _
> 
> _ Like the first time. _
> 
> _ I love it when you do that. _
> 
> _ God, I love it when you do that. _

Two hours later, as the sun rises, Keith shoves the finished lyrics into a drawer with all his other Lance-songs from early morning emotion binges, and goes back to sleep. Shiro doesn’t need to know about that drawer. 

 

***

 

There’s a man in his bed and his head is pounding, the morning sunshine too bright. They’re in Atlanta. On their first tour. And the moment Keith stood on that stage, blinded by lights and deafened by cheers he knew he’d made it. He thought he might cry, right there on the stage, staring into the faces of all the people who’d come to hear him play -- all the people who loved the music he wrote as much as he did. These people, all these people, they were there for him. Not  _ Killer Callous _ or the price of the beer or the novelty of taking care of someone else’s kid. They were there to enjoy something that he made. It was overwhelming. And he’d looked around for a familiar grin in the audience, for that face highlighted in neon blue with his hands in the air and a whoop on his lips. He looked before he even realised what he was doing. The grin hadn’t been there, of course, and this man with his too pale skin and too ingenuine smile, had been the closest Keith could find to the original. 

He rubs his face and lifts the stranger’s arm off his waist, slipping his feet off the bed and padding into the hotel shower. 

_ What am I doing? _

The man is awake when Keith comes out of the shower, propped up against the headboard with his phone out. In ten minutes a picture of Keith Kogane, bassist for the rising band,  _ Castle of Lions _ , wearing nothing but a towel will be on twitter. Keith can’t really bring himself to care. 

“So, uh…” says the man and Keith realises he hasn’t even bothered to remember the guy’s name. “Can I get your number?”

“Sorry,” says Keith, plucking his jeans off the floor and walking out of the hotel room. He’ll just hang out in Shiro and Allura’s room until this guy is gone.

 

***

 

The reveal of Keith’s sexuality happens so early in their public careers that, by the time they’re starting to become a household name, no one really cares anymore. It’s just a fact. Rent is too expensive. The sky is blue. And Keith Kogane from  _ Castle of Lions  _ is gay. It’s less controversial, even, than people who play covers of their songs on youtube with right hand picking. Because, God, don’t you even know that no  _ Castle  _ songs have any right hand picking for rhythm guitar? Shiro’s prosthetic doesn’t have that kind of dexterity you abilist fucks. Keith gave up reading the comments section years ago.  

The big scandal is when Matt is caught with a guy. Apparently bisexuality is harder to understand than a plain black and white choice.

The band spends almost three weeks hiding out in the agency from the tabloids. Keith spends the time adding music and melodies to his hidden stash of songs. 

 

***

 

Keith’s not entirely sure when it became second nature to grab a baseball cap and sunglasses when he left the house. But he stops for a moment as he reaches up to grab the cap off the coat stand in his and Shiro’s fancy new apartment to think about it. 

It wasn’t after the first time he was recognised in the street. He’d been so shell-shocked at that -- the teenage girls who squealed his name and asked for his autograph and him making one up on the spot because what the hell was even happening, how was this his life? -- that he didn’t even feel anything. But, somewhere along the line, people shouting his name at him as he walked back from the shops or when he took his cat to the vet, people stopping him in line at a convenience store for an autograph while he’s trying to buy condoms and lube -- it went from a novelty, from something to rejoice in and celebrate because he’s finally made it, to a major inconvenience. So the hat is a must have accessory now.

_ What do you want, Keith?  _ he asks himself as he reaches for the door handle.  _ What do you want, other than Lance, right  _ now?

“I just want to play,” he murmurs to himself and steps outside. The hat stays on. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh, yes, Chapter Four... the chapter that was supposed to be the last one but then, while writing, I realised it was getting to be as long as the previous three chapters combined and I had to split it.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, are you prepared for the festival?

Keith’s moving into his own apartment next week. He shouldn’t still be shocked, it’s been years already, but he is. Somewhere along the line they went from barely making rent with all four band members’ incomes together to all living in swanky places alone. 

“Hey, Keith?” Shiro’s voice calls from another room. 

Keith doesn’t even look up from the game he’s playing on the Xbox in the lounge, his cat stretched and napping across his shoulders. “Yeah?” he shouts back.

“What the hell is all this?”

Oh. He knows what room Shiro’s in now. He’s in the study with the drawer that Keith forgot to lock last night. 

His player dies on the screen in front of him. Red mewls in his ear and he tumbles her into his arms before guiltily stalking through the apartment towards Shiro.

His brother is standing in the middle of the room, fistfull of paper held in the air. 

Keith doesn’t say anything.

“There are…” Shiro leafs through the pages. “There are twelve finished songs here, Keith. You know we’ve been looking for new material for the next album, we’re supposed to start dropping them during this tour as part of the promotion. And you had  _ twelve finished songs _ that you weren’t willing to show us?”

“They don’t have drumlines to them,” Keith insists, hiding his face in Red’s fur, though he knows Shiro won’t care. Allura usually writes her own anyway. 

“They’re finished enough,” he says. 

“They’re my songs,” says Keith.

“I can see that. They’re in your illegible handwriting.”

“No, I mean they’re  _ my  _ songs. They’re personal. I don’t want…” 

_ I just want to play _ , floats through his head and he frowns. Surely, if that were true, it wouldn’t matter what he showed to the world and what he didn’t. He’d still be playing bass on stage regardless. 

“Okay,” says Shiro in that annoyingly understanding voice. “But have another look through them anyway. We’re supposed to be playing a festival next month and it would be great if we had something new for it. Maybe there’s one in here you wouldn’t mind sharing.”

 

Which is exactly how Keith finds himself, one month later, waiting in the wings of an arena’s stage as Shiro flutters around him saying, “Are you sure? Are you sure, Keith? I didn’t mean to pressure you. I know we spent time rehearsing it but we don’t have to play  _ Cocoon  _ unless you’re absolutely comfortable with it.”

“I’m sure, Shiro,” he says every time his brother brings it up. 

He did actually try and quickly write a new song, one that had absolutely nothing to do with Lance, but nothing was coming in the time he had and he ended up settling for one of the least emotional songs in his stash. Besides, it’s probably time to let Lance go. Chances are Keith doesn’t even really know him anymore. People can change a lot in six years. And the beautiful boy with the heart of glass and the silver tongue is probably long gone. 

He sighs to himself. 

Yes, it’s time to let Lance go. And playing this song, showing it to the world, giving it to other people, will be the first step towards that. 

Suddenly the stage manager is calling five minutes and Keith is checking over his bass. They have roadies to set everything up for them these days but he’ll never be totally comfortable unless he’s checked his own equipment beforehand. His heart is fluttering as he checks connections. Pre-show jitters. He’s used to having them now but he doesn’t think they’ll ever go away completely. 

Then the stage manager is back and holding up five fingers -- Keith stands from where he was sitting on an amp, tuning his bass -- four fingers -- he sets his jaw -- three fingers -- he takes a deep breath -- two -- he and Shiro exchange encouraging glances -- one -- Matt slaps him hard on the back -- zero. And the lights blare to life amidst a storm of dry ice.

They’re running now, onto the stage as Allura hits the first beat and the noise of the crowd hits Keith’s ears. He reaches his mic just as the bassline is due to come in and opens his mouth to join Shiro in belting out the opening lines to  _ Follow You _ \-- still their most popular song after all these years. The crowd isn’t a single person, it’s a sea of arms and phones and glowsticks, useless in the harsh afternoon sun. They roll and fall, crash and change, moving in and out, undulating like the tide. The stage lights are blinding. He can’t make out the first dozen rows. And the heat of them has him soaking through his shirt with sweat already. His own voice sounds distorted through the speakers and his earpiece. It’s so surreal. He’ll never get used to this feeling. 

He meets Allura’s eye as the song reaches its peak and she just grins back at him. It’s so damn hot and the smoke from the initial dry ice burst makes it hard to breathe and the lights hurt his eyes and the air tastes distinctly illegal. He still trembles on stage sometimes, when the crowd feels more alive than he does. But he wouldn’t change this moment for anything. 

_ This is what I’m doing _ , he thinks.  _ This is what I want to be doing _ . 

“Thanks for coming out. We are  _ Castle of Lions _ ,” Shiro shouts into his mic as  _ Follow You  _ ends and they launch immediately into the next song in the set. 

All the pre-show jitters fade away now. He can hear the crowd -- 20,000 strong, the stage manager told him earlier -- singing along to the lyrics he wrote alone and bitter in his tiny room back in LA. And he’s here. He’s alive. Thank fucking Christ he made it this far. 

The song fades out again, reverberating as the signal fades between Matt’s guitar and the massive speakers that flank the band.

“You’re so hot!” a girl’s voice shouts from somewhere off the right of the stage amidst the cheers and Shiro laughs.

Damn right, they’re hot. It’s got to be over 100°.

“Uh, thanks,” says Shiro, “I’m sure you are too, whoever that came from.”

He’s probably right. It’s got to be even hotter in the crowd, surrounded on all sides by other warm bodies with the sweat running down your legs. 

Keith takes this short lull to crouch down and shift his effects box a little, propping the back of it up against a cord taped to the floor so it’ll stop sliding every time he steps on it. 

“So, uh…” Shiro’s saying, “This next song was actually written by Keith years ago.”

Oh yeah. Fuck. They’re doing this. 

Keith doesn’t even hear the crowd cheer at his name.

“But he’d hidden it,” Shiro continues, “I found it in a drawer while looking for printer paper. And he took some convincing to let us play it.” And then he winks -- fucking  _ winks _ at Keith as if he wasn’t the one freaking out the most about playing this before the show. 

Keith flips him the bird and the crowd laughs. 

“Haven’t worked out who it’s about yet… or even if it’s about anybody in particular. But… well, we’ll get it out of him eventually,” says Shiro.

Keith steps up to his own mic so the whole crowd of 20,000 can hear him say, “You need to learn to mind your own fucking business, Shiro.”

They laugh again. It’s nice being automatically funny like this. 

Shiro’s grinning too as he fiddles with his water bottle in his hand. “So, yeah, this is a new one and it’s called --” he takes a sip and puts the bottle back. “It’s called ‘Cocoon’.”

‘ _ Wait _ ,’ Keith hears his heart call but the beat of Allura’s drums crushes it back down and he scolds it. 

_ We agreed,  _ he tells his heart,  _ this is necessary. It’s time to let him go. _

Matt’s guitar suddenly cuts back and Shiro’s voice comes through, so much deeper and smoother than Keith’s could ever be. 

> _ I fell straight into your arms _
> 
> _ Like a drunk who’s been at it _
> 
> _ All morning _
> 
> _ And the sun’s up _
> 
> _ And my head’s fucked.  _

The teasing lilt in Shiro’s tone as he sings ‘God, I love it when you do that,’ is reason enough for him to be lead vocals. But Keith doesn’t hear it at all. Because he’s fighting down images of Lance in that bar with  _ Killer Callous _ slaughtering the notion of music in the background; his shocked eyes as he says, ‘Fuck. You’re gorgeous,’ and the way his lips shaped around the words ‘eyes like the cosmos’, the way they’d shaped around that cocky grin as Keith thought he had to be falling at terminal velocity already but still found himself falling faster and faster into those unusual navy eyes. 

Fuck. He didn’t want to give him up. He didn’t want to give him up at all. Let him change, let him be someone else entirely, let Keith keep living in his delusions and memories forever, just  _ please _ let him keep Lance. 

Still, he’s playing. On muscle memory alone, his fingers follow the bassline and he steps forward, heart weighing a ton, to sing the chorus’ harmony.

> _ Fuck it if they talk. _
> 
> _ Fuck it if they try and get to us. _
> 
> _ ‘Cause I’d rather go blind _
> 
> _ Than let you down. _

The faces of Naomi and her band of dicks might be lost to time and Keith’s poor memory but, God, he still hates them with every fibre of his being. He could have spent more time with Lance. He could have spent even more time with Lance, if they had just been a little less demanding. 

Leave him to Keith for now. You get to have him when he has to return to the real world so, for now, just while he can, let him keep him. Please.

The bridge comes and Keith can feel his jaw start to cramp, trying to lock down on tears that are starting to burn behind his eyes but it can’t. He still has to sing. He can’t just grit his teeth and bear it yet. He opens his mouth and forces the words out.

> _ And if you wanna shut down and pose as positive _

The line he’d been so proud of when he first thought it up because it’s so quintessentially Lance.

> _ And hide smoking from relatives  _

The way he’d babbled, that first night, so giddy about drinking alcohol at nineteen. That adorable fucker.

> _ Then rest on me _ ,

The way he’d always crash halfway through a movie, snuggled into the warmth of Keith’s side, toes up on the couch, head pillowed against Keith’s shoulder. So open and trusting and beautiful.

> _ Honey, that’s alright _ .

Please.  _ Please _ , Keith begs,  _ please let me keep him. _

There’s something happening in the crowd. Something moving, shifting people aside like a snake in the grass. It’s coming closer but so is the last chorus and Keith steps up again to sing.

And then he sees him.

A boy at the security fence, half pushed against it by the disgruntled crowd behind him. He looks up and Keith sees his face, he looks fucking pissed, and the entire world fades to white as the boy jumps the fence and clambers onto the stage, just missing the grabbing hands of the security guard who came to stop him. And Keith knows he’s not singing anymore. He’s not playing, either. He’s just standing there gaping because the boy…

“Lance?” he says and flinches at the way he’s said it straight into the mic, the name that’s haunted him for six years played out for 20,000 strangers. 

No. This is his. He doesn’t want to share it with anyone. 

Lance has stopped. Right in front of Keith. He can see his chest rising and falling with his panting breath from pushing through the crowd. He’s got mud smeared on one cheek and glitter in his hair and -- fucking hell -- he’s as gorgeous at 25 as he was at 19. 

The song must have ended because it’s quiet. It’s silent, in fact. Nobody is cheering this time. Everyone can see Lance standing on that stage, staring Keith down for having the audacity to sing about him when he’d made it clear he was cutting them loose from each other. 

Keith can hear himself breathing in the mic. 

“I didn’t…” he says and the whole audience hears him too. He only wants Lance to hear him. He only wants Lance. 

With a quick shove, the mic stand falls over and Keith fixes his eyes back on the boy in front of him, cataloguing all the ways he’s changed, all the ways he’s aged. The heavier set to his shoulders and the very beginning of fine lines around his eyes, the stronger set to his jaw. Still so pretty, though. 

“I didn’t think you’d,” ever hear this -- is what he tries to say but the words stick in his throat.

“Yeah,” says Lance so maybe he understands. And he’s just staring at Keith, too. He still looks pissed but maybe a little less so than before. So maybe Keith isn’t about to get punched in the face in front of an arena full of people and cameras. 

He can still see them, over Lance’s shoulder. All those people, all those eyes, all that joy he’d felt at seeing them there, wanting to be a part of something that no one but Keith could have ever created, something that was fundamentally  _ his _ \-- all dried up like the saliva in his mouth because he doesn't want them to see this. Doesn’t want them to see Lance.

“Am I right?” Lance asks suddenly and Keith starts. 

“Yeah,” he replies because he knows what he means. Lance has worked it out. The lyrics are fairly literal, after all. “Yeah, you’re right.”

_ He’s real _ . He’s real and he’s really here. Right in front of him. After six years. How is this possible?

Lance bites his lip and Keith shivers. He has to be a mirage. 

“It’s an old song,” Lance says softly, gently, as if they aren’t being watched like the prey they are. 

“I wanted it for myself.” And how Keith replies when he can hardly breathe is astounding. 

Lance laughs and it hasn’t changed at all. It can still make Keith weak at the knees.

“Even though it’s about not giving a shit what other people think?” Lance says and Keith can’t keep the smile off his face any longer.

“Eh…” He shrugs. “Do what I say not what I do.”

“And now?” says Lance and Keith freezes.

And now what? He thought he’d been prepared to let Lance go only, the closer he got to doing it, the more he didn’t want to. So how does he really feel now? 

He asks Shiro with his eyes. Shiro’s always known everything. But he’s too busy freaking out about the still eerily silent crowd who watch them with a nosy, desperate attention. As if Keith can’t feel their gaze burning through his skin. Allura’s too busy being embarrassed for Keith. At least Matt’s trying to distract people. He’s the most helpful of the lot. 

He finally meets Lance’s eyes again and he’s just fucking standing there, looking at him so earnestly like no time has passed at all, like their every move isn’t being watched and analysed by thirsty fans. 

“I…” The sound comes out of Keith’s mouth but he doesn't know what he’s doing with it. “Mean…” He sighs. “Fuck, Lance, what do you think?” Anger is so much easier than vulnerability. 

“I know what I’d like. But it’s an old song -- or, at least, you wrote it years ago. You might have felt differently then,” Lance says calmly.

“It’s yours,” Keith says back, voice sharp with fear.

“I know.”

“No,” says Keith. He doesn’t get it. “I mean: the song, this fucking stage, all of it. It’s yours because I… wouldn’t…” He thinks of how angry he was when he met Lance, how desperate and empty and  _ sad  _ he was. How pointless everything felt when he wasn’t moving anywhere. What’s the point in treading water when you’re so far from land there’s nothing on the horizon in any direction? “Forget music,” says Keith and it’s the most together he’s felt since he first saw that face in the crowd, “I’m not entirely sure I’d still be alive if I hadn’t met you.”

He probably wouldn’t be. Shit, Lance saved his life, didn’t he?

And Lance, in the face of this revelation that’s shocked even Keith, just fucking smirks like the loveable little shit he is. “Does that mean I get a kiss?”

Keith says something then, he feels the words leave his mouth, but he doesn’t know what it is. He’s too busy trying to close the gap between them and prove to himself that Lance is real, flesh and blood beneath his hands.

In the distance, somewhere far away, he can hear the crowd finally start to cheer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we have it. The end. 
> 
> That's it! Until I maybe post some more! Thanks so much for coming with me on this little journey. It's been pretty damn awesome.

**Author's Note:**

> [[my writing tumblr]](https://thecowardlycreative.tumblr.com/)  
> [[this post]](https://thecowardlycreative.tumblr.com/post/173574641429/getting-time-and-regretting-it-chapter-1) come reblog it for me ;)  
> [[vld sideblog]](https://vlddump.tumblr.com/)
> 
> And, as much as being unemployed and poor has helped me with Keith's POV in this fic, I get it now and would really like for this stage of my life to ease up a little. So, if you like what I do and want to give me a hand, you could [buy me a kofi?](https://ko-fi.com/U7U2GBKM) Maybe? Just think about it...


End file.
